/ 2 October 2000

CLINTON GIVES $1.5M TO UGANDAN CHILDREN

UNITED States First Lady Hillary Clinton has donated $1.5m to help resettle and rehabilitate Uganda’s children traumatised by 13 years of war in northern Uganda. Clinton had pledged to help Ugandan children affected by war in northern Uganda when she visited Uganda in 1997, ahead of her husband’s visit a year later. The children are part of thousands abducted by the rebels in the area and forced to fight government forces. The Hilary Clinton Project will be implemented by five local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) led by the Save the Children Denmark, to look after children rescued from the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) of one-time Roman Catholic catechist Joseph Kony. The LRA abducts young girls and boys in northern Uganda and takes them across the border to its bases in southern Sudan, where they are either turned into concubines or soldiers. – AFP